Highland Park

Highland Park is a city with grit and determination, despite the fact that it has suffered through tough times in recent years.

The city is rich in automotive history — Ford created the world's first assembly plant there, and Chrysler once had its headquarters in the city — and it developed some of the metro area's most beautiful historic residential districts. It is surrounded by Detroit at every border, except for a small piece of its perimeter that touches neighboring Hamtramck.

Highland Park is easily accessible via the I-75, the Davison and John C. Lodge expressways. Woodward Avenue carries traffic into the city from downtown and the northern suburbs.

One of the threads running through the eight diary entries we published this year is seeing different people engaged in different passions in all corners of Detroit. Matthew Piper recaps 2013 in sustainability and green living.

An approach to designing a self-maintaining garden modeled after natural ecosystems, Permaculture maximizes the distribution of rainwater by aligning it with exposure to sun and wind. Dennis Archambault went digging for this story.

Green City diarist Matthew Piper talks to gardeners and farmers to learn the reasons why they do what they do, their insights into local resources available to support their efforts, and the preparations they’re making for the growing season.